First of all, in the 5 posts since you first brought up this so-called argument, nobody ‘asserted that many other countries have done this’.
Secondly, as Elvis and Economist have tried to explain to you, the other countries implemented a more economical and efficient system years ago, and thus have never spent as much as the US does on health care. Thus, they’ve never had the exorbitant costs that they need to cut.
This is a bizarre point you’re trying to make.
Do you have any examples of countries that have reduced their healthcare spending by 25-40%? By “reduce” I mean in one year they were spending $X, and then later were spending $X * .75 or * .6.
Which countries have done that?
Hell, let’s make it easy. The US spends twice as much. So another country spending half as much should be able to cut its spending by, say, 12%. What country has cut its healthcare spending by 12% overall?
Regards,
Shodan
You buy a car for $50,000
I buy the same car for $25,000
You think for me to prove it’s possible for you to spend less on a car, I should now be able to buy that car for $22,000.
You sir are a buffoon.
This is complete fiction. The $32 trillion number was reached by different studies, and lauded by Sanders and M4A proponents. There was no cost inflation. And the only reason they got to such a number was by assuming a 40% payment reduction. Finally the cost is what it is. You need a certain amount of taxes to raise $32 trillion over ten years.
I can’t tell if you’re pulling my chain at this point or not, but the facts are worth making this post.
I would consider freezing the health care cost increases to be a win.
Why do you support a system in which costs are basically growing by 12% a year, just because you don’t believe the alternative will cut costs by 12% a year? I mean, that’s just stupid.
Think about what you said for just a second. The cost of Medicare-for-all was $32 trillion. The cost of our current system is $34 trillion. You think the only way they got from $34 trillion to $32 trillion was through a 40% cost reduction? Do you think you should maybe double-check your math?
Your knowledge of the thing you are discussing has reset to zero, Memento-style.
Just out of curiosity, are you aware of how stupid this assertion is?
I’ve joked that you seem to be drunk on Liberal tears but I’m now starting to wonder if you’re just drunk.
Politicians who don’t want universal care have to make obtuse arguments about the costs to argue against it. You don’t. No one is voting for you, so you don’t have to pretend the current system is more cost efficient. Why not just admit you don’t want people getting free healthcare because it offends your capitalist sensibilities?
$32 trillion in federal spending, but the claim is that the overall spending would decrease. So the $32 trillion needs to be raised through massive taxation, that’s a problem unto itself. But the way they figured that overall spending would actually slightly decrease is by assuming that every healthcare provider in America would accept 40% lower payment rates compared to what they receive through private insurers with no reduction in staff, service, or quality. This is an absurd assumption.
You’re either pulling my chain or you yourself have no idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t think it’s the latter. Federal spending would need to increase to $32 trillion over 10 years. The federal government would be in charge of paying for “Medicare for All” payments. Certainly you know this.
So…you think that total costs of healthcare coverage will decrease from 34 trillion to 32 trillion because of a 40% reduction in the costs of healthcare? I agree that’s absurd, but probably for different reasons than you.
Also, if we have two alternatives: 1) pay 34 trillion (what we are doing now) or 2) pay 32 trillion (the medicare-for-all plan), which of those two options do you think requires higher payments?
I asked you before, but I’ll ask you again: if you had the choice of paying $32 trillion or $34 trillion, which choice would you pick, and would it really make a difference who you made the check out to?
Edit: Okay, if you’re evasively critiquing that it would technically need to increase by $21 trillion over ten years with a $1.1 trillion times ten years offset, I’ll accept that. You certainly haven’t explained that, but I’ll accept that if that’s what you’re getting at.
The problem is this: The lion’s share of healthcare spending is private insurers, with Medicare and Medicaid close behind. So the costs to Americans is the taxation we currently have along with premiums and co-pays. These costs would be dwarfed by the increase in across-the-board taxes necessary to raise $21 trillion additional dollars. So there are certainly some people with astronomical healthcare costs due to chronic or serious ailments who would be getting a bargain, but much of the country would be paying much, much more in new taxes than they were paying previously.
You can argue that this is a sacrifice the healthy should be willing to make for their fellow Americans, that we’re in this together, and it’s the right thing to do. That’s a conversation for another time. My only argument is that they won’t. That if the average American with average healthcare needs saw the taxes that would be necessary, they’d absolutely balk. They’d balk and step back from the whole idea. They’d say, “We need a solution, but this is drastic and I can’t afford it.”
And when you show them that they won’t have to pay premiums any more, and those savings are greater than the tax increase that they are looking at, will they continue to insist that they cannot afford it?
Do you think that americans are getting their healthcare for free right now?
I’m sure for those with expensive insurance due to particular ailments, they’d see savings. But for an average American with average healthcare needs (maybe a prescription for blood pressure, a broken wrist a few years back), they would most certainly be paying more. I would guess the vast majority of people under 50 would end up paying much more in new taxes than they did on premiums or out-of-pocket costs, but I’ll admit I don’t have those figures. It’s pretty well accepted that the healthy don’t spend nearly as much on premiums or healthcare as the chronically- or seriously-ill do, obviously. This is to say nothing of those that get their healthcare through their place of employment.
But sure, if you could somehow convince tens of millions of healthy Americans with low premiums and out-of-pocket costs (or those who don’t even have insurance because hey, I’m a healthy 25-year-old, what do I need that for?) that their taxes are going to increase markedly and they need to be on board, then go for it. I don’t think it’ll happen.
People don’t get expensive insurance due to ailments. Insurance is not based on your ailments. Not sure where you would get that from. Have you ever actually had insurance, or had anything to do with it?
Out of pocket costs can be based on your usage, but not your premiums.
Why do you say nothing of those who get their healthcare through their place of employment? Do you think that it is free to get it through your employer? Even if they cover all the premiums (which I doubt very many places do anymore), that is still part of your benefits package, resources that are being spent on you that you could be taking in cash instead.
That is not including the people who have insurance through their employer that sucks. That’s quite a number of americans.
For the 25 year old that thinks he’s superman, if he falls ill or gets injured, do we just leave him in the street to die? His taxes are based on his income, so he would only be paying substantially more if he makes substantially more.
I was 25 before the ACA, and I had insurance through some of my employers, and bought it on the individual market a few times as well (that sucks). I had peers that thought I was wasting money, and I was, as I’ve visited a doctor (other than the dentist) only 2 times in the last 20 years.
But, some of them are bankrupt now, due to medical bills they could not pay.
I get that you “guess” that the majority of people would be paying more, but your guess is contraindicated by actual economists who have studied the issue.
This is the problem with going with your gut, rather than actual facts.
Right now, a good chunk of our tax dollars go to cover the very most expensive patients. People over 55, and veterans. Throw in the fact ath people on Medicaid tend to live less healthy lives as well, and we are paying for them on our tax dollars as well.
So, what we are looking to pick up and cover are the people who have not served in combat, who are under 55, who are not poor. We are already covering the most expensive patients, covering the cheaper ones actually is a bargain.
Sorry, should have said, “high amount of healthcare costs” due to particular ailments.
There is no economist that is contradicting that, because there’s no tax scheme out proposing to pay for it, as the economist I linked earlier pointed out. They simply leave the revenue problem unaddressed. This is why we don’t have those figures. We know how much it would require, but not how exactly the tax structure would be set up. As I’ve argued, even if you taxed everyone making a million dollars or more at 100%, it would still leave a massive shortfall. So guess what other countries with nationalized healthcare do? They tax the crap out of everybody.
Look, everything shows that, if we implemented a real UHC, we would spend less money on healthcare than we do now.
That some of those costs would be moved form those who can least afford them to those who can most afford them is a feature of a progressive tax structure, not a bug.
If you are middle class american, and you are in the middle 3 quintiles, then your healthcare costs will go down. If you are in the bottom, then you get healthcare when you struggled to get it before.
Only the top 20% of the population could potentially be seeing an increase, and I am actually all for that, even if not for healthcare. And, really, most of any increase would be borne by the top 1% or so.
Most people would pay more in taxes than they do now, but that would be more than offset by no longer paying premiums or out of pocket expenses. They would end up keeping more of their paycheck at the end of the year.
So, we have two arguments, one is that we shouldn’t do it in any case, and the other that we cannot afford it. I think that the case that we can afford it has been pretty well made. We can afford what we are doing now, and we are doing it very efficiently, so I cannot see how making healthcare more economical would make it less affordable. Then there is the argument that, regardless of the benefits and savings, people shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s medical care, from an ideological standpoint. I do believe that it is largely people that hold to the second argument that keep repeating the counterfactual errors when they try to make the first.
So, for the sake of argument, let’s say that we have shown that this will actually save the vast majority of americans money to your satisfaction, would you still be against it?
Sure, they tax everybody, and everybody pays less in taxes towards UHC than we pay in premiums.
Your argument is a red hearing, we don’t need to tax everyone that makes over $1m at 100% (though I wouldn’t be against a decent hike on them). We would be increasing the taxes on the middle class, but by less than what they currently pay in premiums.
You can make up all sorts of conditions that you can claim cannot be fulfilled, but you have to show that those conditions are necessary, and you have not.